What We Are Reading Today: No Ordinary Assignment

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Updated 07 July 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: No Ordinary Assignment

Author: Jane Ferguson

This is a wonderful glimpse into a brilliant foreign correspondent.

Not only does Jane Ferguson have extensive experience reporting in conflict zones across the globe, she has a terrific ability to humanize the stories of the marginalized and voiceless.

Her fearlessness, and commitment to her craft is outstanding.

When the Taliban claimed Kabul in 2021, she was one of the last Western journalists to remain at the airport as thousands of Afghans, including some of her colleagues, struggled to evacuate.

Ferguson "has covered nearly every war front and humanitarian crisis of our time," said a review on Goodreads.com.

Afghanistan was the "Vietnam of our era,” Ferguson writes in her memoir.

She managed to dodge injury in Somalia, Afghanistan and Palestine even as she kept taking risks.

Her descriptions are carefully rendered; the stories never blur into each other.

"With an open-hearted humanity we rarely see in conflict stories, 'No Ordinary Assignment' shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds," said the review.

 

 


What We Are Reading Today: ‘Planetary Climates’

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Updated 26 December 2025
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘Planetary Climates’

  • As this book makes clear, the better we can understand how various planetary climates formed and evolved, the better we can understand Earth’s climate history and future

Author: ANDREW INGERSOLL 

This concise, sophisticated introduction to planetary climates explains the global physical and chemical processes that determine climate on any planet or major planetary satellite—from Mercury to Neptune and even large moons such as Saturn’s Titan.

Although the climates of other worlds are extremely diverse, the chemical and physical processes that shape their dynamics are the same.

As this book makes clear, the better we can understand how various planetary climates formed and evolved, the better we can understand Earth’s climate history and future.